NW Images & Altered Art

Sometimes I find unusual images to capture at public places.  I was taking my daughter to PTI airport and noticed this usual artwork?   There was no artist or name listed for this object.  I had to shoot upwards with my iPhone. It looked like it was made with silicone. 

(Cleodendrum trichotomum, Peanut Plant, Harlequin Glorybower)  This a very unusual floweing shrub.  I was at the Greensboro Arboretum when this shrub happened to be have the fruit which has very unusual colors.  I have included below the website for more information and a picture of the shrub with white flowers in the summer. I have never seen this in bloom and will have to look when I go in the summertime.  This plant is native to Japan. No post process except cropping.  Taken with iPhone Xr. ht tps://www.gardenia.net/plant/Clerodend rum-tric hotomu m

 I was at Sarah Duke Garden in Durham NC a few weeks ago and managed to capture some images of the toad lily(Tricyrtis hirta) which blooms late in the fall before the hard frost. These flowers have a small, orchid like flowers, speckled with white and shades of purple, with tall stems It is native to ravines and woodland edges in Inda, China, Japan and other parts of Asia  Be forewarned that deer and rabits find these tasty. The plant is a perennial.   

Fall has different blooms at the Greensboro Arboretum.   The image on the left is of a Castor Bean Plant which is a shrub often used for landscaping because of the flowers & color of the leaves. the latter is not that evident in the image.   It does have medicinal properties (caster oil as a laxative). The seeds are extremely poisonous - worse than cyanide. The image on the right is of a common Georgia  aster (Syphyotrichum georgianum). It is native to Southeastern States and blooms in September and October. Images taken with iPhone XR.  Minimal post processing.   

 These types of images have textures and patterns.  I am always intriqued with lichens on bark of trees which is the image on the right. The tree bark I decided to use an angle to make a diagonal. The rust image on the left has texture and patterns due to rust.  The rust image on the left has color variation and you could almost imagine this type of image being something that an artist might paint on canvas but would take hours or days to complete,  Whereas I can certainly tweek the colors, saturation and sharpness with editing with an app on my iPhone or with my computer using various filters. 

You never know what you may find at Halloween as decorations for the venue. My neighbor likes to make his yard look scarey.  Thie image on the left has a witch who cackles when the "trick or treaters" stop by on Halloween.  There is also  a crypt for "Lydia"- a ghost. There is dry ice making smoke to make the yard more eerie.   The image on the right was in a different yard.  I liked the texture and design of this material which was strung all over some shrubs in a yard.  I took the image late evening but it did not show up that green and I did try to alter the color so fiber shapes more evident.  I think it makes a great altered art image.   They had other colors like orange and purple but it showed more of the foliage and I was looking for texture of the material itself. 

This Ginko biloba tree is located in the Lawndale Shopping Center and there are many present at that location in Greensboro,NC.Because they are relatively new, a lot of the leaves are at eye level.  They were not quite at peak bloom as the lower branches were still green. This image was taken with the iPhone Rx. I did not do any post processing editing. Since this was a parking area for a strip mall,  I did not want to not include cars in the image. Unfortunately the iPhone does not show in detail the special leaf formation of the leaves.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginkgo_biloba

The camellia sasanqua is in bloom now. These are the fall blooming variety.  I found these blossoms at the Lawndale Baptist Church in Greensboro, NC. Minimal editing post processing.  I call this variety - peppermint as reminds me a bit of a candy cane.  There were no labels to identify the cultivar. These were of two different blossoms.  Images taken with my iPhone Xr. 

More fall color images in my neighborhood.  The image on the left was taken when the sky was cloudy and so the background looks white. I did lighten post processing.  I think this was a beach tree and the leaves are past peak..so looks like a more lacy effect with more brown coloration. The image on the right I took in a dfferent area and the sun was shining about noon.  I again tried for back lighting of the leaves which gives a more abstract appearance to the leaf shapes. Not sure of the tree ID. Images were taken with my iPhone Xr.

It is fall again and decided I needed to take images of the fall foliage in Greensboro, NC, near my home.   This maple tree had a lot of different colors.  I like to take backlit images as well as those that I am looking at the leaf shapes and colors from the front.  These were taken with my new iPhone Xr.  I used the editing on this iPhone to increase the saturation. shadows & highlights.